MyHydro is a textile wristband with a printed electronic system that allows you to assess the level of hydration in the body. The device, which is created as part of a start-up established by specialists from the Lodz University of Technology, is to be used primarily by people who practice sports, young children and seniors, whose feeling of thirst weakens with age.
The idea of creating the band came up with Dr. Magdalena Owczarek and Ewelina Pabjańczyk-Wlazło from the Lodz University of Technology.
As Dr. Owczarek emphasizes, myHydro is to solve the problem of controlling the body’s hydration and signal when we start to become dehydrated. – In most cases our body sends a thirst signal, but in many cases it fails us. This is the case of the elderly, who often forget to drink and their need to thirst disappears with age, or hard-working people, especially young people who have succumbed to the trend of sports activity, running, without thinking about the health consequences and how the body should be hydrated and nourished – says the researcher.
The headband developed by Dr. Owczarek at first glance is no different from those used by athletes to wipe sweat from the forehead. – In this cloth, we want to put electronics that will watch over our hydration level and signal a good or bad level. We want the information to be clear and legible for each group of recipients – he emphasizes.
In the basic version, the level of hydration is to be signaled by means of the blue diodes showing the correct level and the flashing red diodes – indicating the dehydration of the organism.
The creators of the solution plan to personalize the bands, because each organism is different and in each case the optimal level of hydration will be different. They also plan to create a version of the band with a display that would show more information about the hydration of the body. The authors do not want to reveal the details of their study yet, but ensure that their headband is non-invasive. – We do not interfere with the skin or the body in any way, the measurement is non-invasive – emphasized Dr. Owczarek.
Currently, the team is working on a prototype of the wristband – for now it is quite a large capsule containing all the electronics connected to the textile wristband. Ultimately, the entire system is to be minimized to a textile band with printed electronics. – Our prototype will be implemented in the research stage already on a specific, statistical group of patients – added the researcher.
But you will have to wait a little longer for the finished wristband. – The next two or three years will be the refinement of the prototype, the creation of an application that will support the entire measurement system and can be installed, for example, on a smartphone or computer. Personalization, i.e. the creation of all algorithms related to the conduct of this study, with averaging data. And if it succeeds, then the production will also start – says Ewelina Pabjańczyk-Wlazło.